The Dynamic Curve

 

Another Ed Ball post today to keep the thread going. The World Wide Web doesn't provide much information (anymore) if you want to find out something about “the Dynamic Curve” of Sand. Sand were another side project from Edward Ball, this time together with Creation Records colleague Richard “Dick” Green, who was also involved in various The Times albums.

I don't think many people know this album, at least you never read about it and when Edward Ball is mentioned, Sand is never mentioned and no track on it ever appears on Ed Ball compilations. At least I don't know anything about it.

One review claimed that it was "the album Mike Oldfield has wanted to make for years."

Well, I can't say, but it is indeed a great, chill instrumental album. The album was released in 1991, Ed Ball was in his highly productive phase with several The Times, Love Corporation, Teenage Filmstars albums in a relatively short period of time. For me at the time it was simply unbelievable how many different genres he was active in. And certainly not every one of his songs was a hit. But under the influence of ecstasy he came up with a very high number of fantastic and convincing tracks. “The Dynamic Curve” has aged well and especially the opening track “Felatio” is 10 minutes of pure happiness and I always enjoy playing it, even after “Star 6 & 7 8 9“ by the Orb or similar chillers. I envy everyone who is still able to discover this album.

„Sand was a duo comprised of British songwriter Ed Ball and the co-owner of Creation Records, Richard Green. Ed Ball’s background with post-punk and neo-psychedelic rock bands like Television Personalities, ‘O’ Level, and Teenage Filmstars is felt in the album’s atmosphere. “Felatio” is an epic opener, beginning with strumming guitars and launching into gorgeous synth melodies and rolling percussion. The song progresses with a triumphant spirit and sounds like the accompaniment to flying over snowy mountains and fantasy landscapes. “This Thinking Feeling Moment” follows with a more somber mood, an arpeggiated guitar melody repeating throughout while synths and sound effects swirl in and out of the soundscape. “Consent” and “Absolution” are more laid back and sunny, resembling Harmonia and 1980s era Tangerine Dream. The album is highly diverse and serene, invoking a consistently unique atmosphere. The Dynamic Curve is a thought-provoking listening experience able to sound both retro and ahead of its time, even influencing one of the best metal albums of the century, The Mantle by Agalloch. Sand were a short-lived project, but they made something special in their brief tenure that sounds both adventurous and blissful.“

-Benjamin Kuettel-

You can hear the full album here:

https://www.discogs.com/master/334109-Sand-The-Dynamic-Curve

Pure & Et dieu cre la femme

 

I recently read Alan McGee’s autobiography. A book that is easy to read.

Of course, the question arises as to how many of the many stories and anecdotes that McGee tells actually happened. After all, alcohol and many, many drugs were always involved. Of course I would have liked to read a lot more about Ed Ball, who was an important man for McGee and Creation records. And also more about the creation of the albums themselves. Fact is, Creation was an important label for me at least from 1989 to, say, 1995. Everything that came out there was super interesting and had to be checked first. A lot of it wasn't really my cup of tea, but there was a lot to discover and celebrate besides Ed Ball (My Bloody Valentine,Hypnotone, Primal Scream, Momus, Pete Astor, Pie Finger, Sheer Taft, Lilac Time, Dreadzone). I already wrote that Ed Ball was hyperactive and creative during this time. In addition to his house and yard project the Times, he had many other projects going on (Sand, Teenage Film Stars). Love Corporation was certainly his most famous side project.

Between The Times albums “Et dieu cre la Femme” and “Pure” there were 21 catalog numbers,

In between there were other Ed Ball records. “Pure” was my introduction to the Ed Ball cosmos. I discovered the previous two albums retrospectively, so to speak.

I already wrote about “E for Edward”. Not all of the songs on the 3 albums take me away, but here too there are wonderful Ed Ball gems, from the fantastic Blue Monday cover “Lundi Bleu”, the great “Ours is a Wonderlove World”, the almost kitschy “Pour Kylie” ( the second Kylie anthem after KLF's "Kylie said it Jason"). Other pretty good tracks include “A Girl called Mersey”, “Confiance” and the very electronic “Aurore Boreale”.

Together with his side projects, there's enough material for a pretty varied 90 minute tape and summer car rides.

„Given that the dust has really settled on Creation now, what are your favourite releases on the label now?

Of my own? Probably ‘Pure’ The Times 1991 for being so anarchic and disrespectful. Recorded on a £600 budget, it sounds like a mental breakdown waiting to happen. Not surprising given the amounts of LSD I was ingesting . . . far beyond ReCreational doses. (Alan maintains that in hindsight, I’d suffered a minor breakdown around this time). Also ‘Star’ Teenage Filmstars 1992 which appeared only months after “Loveless” for achieving that intangible vagueness. As for everybody else who made records on the label, I’ve adopted Joe’s view that they were all brilliant.

I’m not sure that’s true though, about the dust settling. Creation was the brainchild of a man who had 20 ideas a day, some of which changed thousands upon thousands of people’s lives. Some are timebombs still waiting to go off. The mid-period of the label is currently in vogue and there’s alot of fascinating music and madness to discover therein. The last quarter of Creations music history is largely overshadowed by Oasis’s staggering success and the change in the company’s working mechanism, but it was still mostly Alan’s idiosyncratic vision. That period wasn’t always about trying to occupy all 40 positions in the charts every week . . .“

Interview Passages from Creation Records.

E for Edward

 

In 1988, after a short break, Ed Ball (TV Personalities, The Boo Radleys) restarted his project - the Times - essentially as a solo project on Creation Records. Until then he had released a handful of mod pop/rock records every year since 1982. Ed Ball's band had recently broken up, Creation boss Alan McGee arranged for his own band Biff Pang Pow! as a backing band to record “Beat Torture”. Ed Ball returned the favor by participating in their fourth album “Love is forever”. But big changes were coming: acid house and the second summer of love came to England and had a huge influence on his work. E for Edward, released in 1989, was his 2nd album for Creation.

„From here, it was just a short magic bus ride to ‘E for Edward’ 1989 Times album, by which time I’d been working at Creation for about a year and was in the froth and thrall of it’s Ecstasy culture.“

If you look at his activities in the following years, the man couldn't have slept more than 2 or 3 hours a day. His output was so enormous that he could no longer and would not put his ideas on the Times albums alone. And so we got wonderful albums as Love Corporation and Sand (a project that hardly anyone knows about anymore), which I will also write about. However, dance beats were no reason for him to put down the guitar. His album as Teenage Filmstars, “Lift off/Stars…” sounded to me like a melodic version of My Bloody Valentine and “Loveless”. However, I ignored his activities as Conspiracy of Noise (a violent rock collaboration with the singer of Extreme Noise Terror) (similar to KLF vs. ENT).

„If there’s any period that has a particular resonance with me, then its ’90 to ’93. There was an unspoken “licence” that existed at Creation by Alan’s decree. Any artist could make as many records as they liked, the prerequisites being you recorded inexpensively, quickly and could guarantee 5000+ sales. It benefited the label by filling the release schedules resulting in turnover. This privilege had briefly been in the hands of two or three other notable writers. I applied for the “licence” and had it for a year on probation. It prompted one weekly music paper to describe me as “the only artist in music today who uses and abuses his label” – for the next forty-odd months I made 12 albums, variously as The Times, Teenage Filmstars and . . .“

Looking back, you can say that his Creation Records years, where he also worked under Alan McGee, were the years that were the most interesting for me personally, but when “E for Edward” came out in 1989 I didn't know anything about any of that. The Berlin Wall fell at the end of the year and there were thousands of records, books, films and other things to discover. Money was tight, the Internet had not yet been invented and people had to rely on newspapers and magazines. Sometimes it led nowhere, sometimes it was a direct hit. I can't remember exactly, but I think I discovered "E for Edward" after "Pure" (1991). So there can be no question of chronology. The album has its big hit with “Manchester” and further wonderful moments with “French Film Bleurred”, “No Love On Haight Street” & “Snow”.

„In keeping with the album’s drug-oriented title, the record closes with “Acid Angel of Ecstasy,” a character study hissed over oscillating tremolo guitar. From there, it was only a drop, trip and a thump to the Love Corporation, a nom-de-dance under which Ball released a 1990 acid-house EP.“

• Ira Robbins -

And, and so on….and….that Ed Ball is a big New Order fan should have been clear at least since the Blue Monday cover version “Lundi bleu” with its many versions. The previously unreleased “Truth Faith” appeared a few years ago on a compilation that included my 3 favorite “the Times” albums “E for Edward” (1989) “Et Dieu Créa La Femme” (1990) & “Pure” ( 1991) were re-released on CD with further additional tracks. For me, “Manchester” is basically a New Order anthem without Hooky’s bass.

„So we're sitting in the snug bar waiting for Jase the Ace 

Hooky's by the jukebox doing his splendid to entertain

Look at Tony Wilson live on Channel 4…“

And then there's the matter of the back cover.

“Technique” was New Order's Ibiza album, the last for Tony Wilson's Factory and was released one year earlier. “E for Edward” is more than a clear reference.

 Interview Passages taken from creation records. Part2 will follow. 

File under: Pop / Dance